Two men who invaded an Illinois home and ran up against an armed mom are headed to prison after pleading guilty to attempted murder. Alexia Templar had never even held a gun before Colton Clark and Christopher Johnston broke into her home in February 2025, but the mom of Two young daughters was still able to shoot one of the home invaders, even though she too was shot while protecting herself and her kids.
Templar was asleep when three men broke into the home under the mistaken belief that there was a large amount of marijuana that they could steal and re-sell. The mom woke up to the sound of noises coming from her kitchen, and she frantically FaceTimed her partner, who was at work, to tell him what was happening.
“He told me that I’m going to have to do this. I’m going to have to protect myself. I need to grab the gun, and I need to be ready to defend my home,” Templar said.
She had never held a gun prior to that moment.
“As soon as I see them, I say to them, ‘I have a gun, so get out of my house, or I will shoot you.’ As soon as I said that they started immediately firing at me, both the people,” Templar said.
In all, police believe about 30 shots were fired. Templar says only four of those shots came from her gun, and in the barrage of bullets that were sent her way, she was shot and wounded in the forearm and hip.
Soon after, as she was bleeding, her oldest daughter ran up to her.
“So, I put my kids in the closet, and I shut the door, and I’m screaming at them, pleading, ‘Please don’t kill my kids. I have kids. Please don’t kill my kids. Please don’t kill me. Please,'” Templar said.
The three men took off running, and Templar's partner soon arrived and drove her to the hospital.
Officers from the Decatur, Illinois Police Dept. arrived at the home around 4:15 that morning and started their investigation. About two hours later, police got a call about a man who said he had been shot in the back.
Identified as 24-year-old Deonte Stone, he was later interviewed by Detective James Knierim at the hospital. Stone reportedly admitted to being shot during the shootout in Templar’s home.
“[Stone] advised he was contacted by a juvenile he knows as [Johnston]. Chris asked [Stone] to take part in a burglary at [Templar’s address],” Knierim wrote in a sworn statement filed in court. “[Stone] advised he was told the owner of the house is a drug dealer and has lots of cannabis in the home. The plan was to sell the cannabis and split the proceeds.”
Knierim said Stone told him Clark was present for the planning of the break-in and agreed to take part. The intruders broke in through the basement and went to the main level of the home, where Templar confronted them from her bedroom door.
Stone claimed that he was turning away from Templar’s bedroom and was walking toward the kitchen when he was shot in the back. He claimed that Clark was the only one to fire at Templar, but that contradicts what she told officers: that at least two people opened fire on her.
“It should be noted that someone outside had fired 5-6 times through the living room window toward Alexia’s bedroom. This window is directly next to the door the suspects exited, according to Alexia and [Stone],” Knierim said. “There were no spent bullet casings located outside the window area, which leads to the belief that the gun used was possibly a revolver, which is what [Stone] was armed with.”
Clark and Johnston each received 25-year sentences for trying to kill Templar, and Clark will have to serve 85 percent of his sentence before he's eligible for parole. As far as soft-on-crime Illinois sentences go, I've seen much worse.
I'm all for folks getting training and education on how to be safe and responsible with a gun, as well as how to be a better shot. But Templar's case is a perfect example of why it's a violation of our right to keep and bear arms to require someone undergo that training before they can purchase or possess a firearm.
Templar had never held a gun before that cold February morning, but despite her inexperience and it being at least a 2-to-1 fight she was still able to hit one of her attackers and send the three men fleeing from her home.
Templar could theoretically have faced charges for possessing a firearm without a FOID card, even in her own home and even though the gun was legally owned by her partner, though I suspect that prosecutors knew that a jury would be highly unlikely to convict her for using a gun to defend herself and her children.
Illinois doesn't require training to get a FOID card, but more and more anti-gun states are starting to mandate a certain number of training hours simply to possess a gun in the home. As we reported just a few days ago, Massachusetts officials are even proposing what amounts to a marksmanship test in order to get a license to carry, which is required to keep a handgun at home as well as to carry that firearm in public.
Those laws violate our Second Amendment rights and put people needlessly at risk of harm from burglars, home invaders, stalkers, and abusers. Alexia Templar and her children are alive today because she was able to access a firearm and use it, even though she had never before pulled a trigger.
